“CURES” GROUP PUTS CLONING BEFORE KIDS

In desperate ongoing efforts to secure public funding of human cloning and research that destroys living human embryos, the St. Louis advocacy group Missouri Cures has manufactured false controversy over the Raise Your Hand for Kids (RYH4K) ballot initiative.

RYH4K seeks to bolster funding for early childhood health and education, and enhance smoking cessation and prevention programs for pregnant mothers and youth. This is achieved through tobacco tax increases over a period of years. Missouri Right to Life (MRL) has analyzed the initiative language and publicly declared neutrality on the ballot proposal.

MRL has supported life-protecting legislative language dating back to the original 2003 Tobacco Settlement and the establishment of the Life Science Research Trust Fund by the Missouri legislature. In this original language, Missouri taxpayers were protected by a prohibition on public funding of abortion, human cloning, and research that destroys living human beings in the earliest stages of development. We continue to promote the use of this life-protecting language in the legislative process.

In 2006, proponents of unchecked research (including human cloning!) used manipulative, emotional and dishonest means to purchase a constitutional amendment. In Amendment 2, “human cloning” was erroneously and unscientifically defined – in discord with the rest of the scientific world – in order to prevent our Missouri legislature from placing boundaries on unethical experimentation on human beings.

While their deception barely prevailed, they did not gain a funding stream to use our public dollars to experiment on unborn babies. They sold Missourians a bill of goods in 2006, promising never to ask for public dollars. Looks like their opposition to RYH4K exposes the truth of their agenda!

Why would a group who swore not to ask for tax dollars oppose this ballot initiative? It appears they intend to have Missourians on the hook for their unethical efforts that kill human beings in the earliest and most innocent stages. They are envious when others seek funding for good causes that they cannot gain from. They don’t want you to know that – hence the subterfuge and double-speak in their emotional appeals about cures. What they really want is endless public funding with no ethical boundaries.

It’s okay to Raise Your Hand for Kids. RYH4K is about education for children and pregnant women regarding risks of tobacco usage. To slander this initiative is just another deception by those supporting research on unborn babies.

Steve Rupp, President and Therese Sander, Vice-President
Missouri Right to Life